In a social context what actions violate
the individual's freedom to act with regard to his own person and property?
Or, put another way, what specifically violates a person's freedom and
therefore should be prohibited to maximize freedom? In his essay
"On Liberty" J. S. Mill exhorts us to refrain from "doing harm" to others.
But what exactly constitutes "harm"? Some would identify "harm" (or
lack of it) with intent. But there are many "liberals" (neofascists)
who try to justify doing harm to some by saying they intend on doing good
for others, when in fact they are harming those they claim to be helping
("Obamacare" being a prominent example). Intent is subjective.
I take a different approach by getting away from using the term "harm"
altogether.

Such terms as "coercion," "violence," "voluntary
relationship," and "freedom" are crucial to an understanding of the libertarian
position andit is not inaccurate to
say that one of the main characteristics that sets libertarians apart from
the vast majority of non-libertarians is that libertariansin
general hold a clear distinction in their minds between those human
activities which they claim shouldbe
legally permissible and those which should be banned by law. Unlike
the vast majority of the non-libertarian population, libertarians generally
know the differencebetween a voluntary relationship and a coercive
or violent one, and they know the difference in fairly clearterms. It is with these terms that I
hope to deal in the following paragraphs. Although I have used these
formulations, particularly the definition of "coercion" or violence, since
1972 as a means of achieving more clarity in political discourse, others
have expressed these same concepts in different ways and terminology.
The definitions below do not necessarily coincide with the prevailing legal
definitions of these terms.

"Coercion" (or "violent
force") is an act by a human or humans againstthe
will or without the permission of another human being with respect to that
which is his own (his own person or property). It means for someone
to take, use, meddle with or otherwise do something to thebody
or property of another adult human being without the permission or against
the will of that other human being. This includes fraud andembezzlement and other indirect uses of force as well
as directphysical violence.

If someone does something to the body or
property of someone elsewithout their permission
or against their will, that is what we meanby
coercion, coercive force, or violence in this context. There are two kinds
of coercion: initiatorycoercion (the use of coercive force
against someone who has not committed a coercive act against anyone) and
retaliatory coercion (the use of coercive force in retaliation againstsomeone who has initiated the use of coercion against
someone). It is the initiationof the use of coercion
that all libertarians oppose on principle since it is the violation
of the self-ownership or property rights of innocent human beings (those
who have not initiated the use of violence againstanyone).
Most libertarians favor the proper and righteous use of coerciveforce, according to rules of due process, against criminals,
those who have been convicted of violating the rights of someone by committing
initiatory coercion.

Avoluntary relationship is a human relationship
in which the wills ofall the participants coincide
(agree) with respect to the terms of the relationship. A voluntary
relationship does not (necessarily) mean one in which a person "volunteers"
in the sense of performing some work for no material compensation (such
as donating ones time and energies to working for a charity or on civic
activities). It includes any mutually agreed-upon exchange (such
as working as an employee for a company in exchange for a salary or wages.)
Libertarians oppose any coercive interference -- either by government or
by criminals -- with such voluntary exchanges. This is why libertarians
oppose government controls on prices, wages, rents, and interest rates
-- since such controls represent coercive interference with the terms of
voluntary exchanges and relationships.

These definitions imply 1)
a social context, 2) a volitional context,and
an 3) ownership context. The definitions assume that human beings have
wills (desires, say-sos, wishes) over which they have at leastsome
control and that there is more than one human living in the same area.
(An individual human being living on an otherwise desertedisland
would be outside our context since he would not be able tocoerce
anyone or be coerced by anyone; nor would he be able to engage in any voluntary
relationship since that would require at least oneother
person with whom to interact.)

We say someone is (or theoretically
would be) "free" or enjoys "civilliberty" if
there is an absence of coercion in his life while living in a social
context. In other words, a man is free or "has freedom" to the
extent that, in a socialcontext, he retains
exclusive right of control over that which belongs to him (his personand his legitimately acquired property).

If I tie my shoes in a way that you do not
like, I am meeting only the firsttwo of the
three criteria – that is, I am a human being and I am doing something against
someone else's will; however, I am not doing anythingagainst
someone else's will with respect to that which is their own (their person
or property). Notice that I am performing the action on my own shoes,
not someone else's. If, however, I were to go over and tie
your shoes against your will or without your permission,
that
would be an actof coercion.
This is a simple, and somewhat silly, hypothetical example toillustrate
the point of distinction.

Let us apply the three requirements
to real-world examples to prove the practicality of this approach:

Is advertising coercive of human
rights? Do TV commercials imposeviolenceon
viewers? Or do they merely seek to change your mindthrough persuasion?If
a software manufacturer offers his product at alower price, does this constitute violence
against the rights of hiscompetitors or anyone else? If a man looks
at a woman with lust in hisheart, whether it be good or bad manners,
is this an act of violent coercionwhich violates her rights? With
clear definitions to make the properdistinctions between what is "coercive
violence" and what is not, thesequestions can be answered without ambiguity.

If a representative of "the Mafia"
tells a storekeeper that his place of business will be hit by a bomb or
riddled with bullets if he does not fork over a certain amount of "protection
money" every week, is this a threat of violence? It certainly is.
If an organized group of people called "the government" confiscate a man's
bank account because, they say, he "owes" back taxes, is this coercion?
The answer is clearly yes. If agents of the government take or use
a man's land for "public use" or if they regulate him concerning how he
may use his own land, does this constitute violence? Of course, it does.

How does one know when his
or her rights have been violated? Hasviolence been initiated
or not? There are relatively few if any "gray areas"in answering these questions
if one consistently adheres to the three-partdefinition of "coercion"
or "violent force" above.

Ayn Rand noted one of the three
basic principles of ideological warfarein
this way: "When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly
defined,it works to the advantage
of the rational side; when they are not clearlydefined,
but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."

In the ideological
war being waged today, it is in the interests of those who oppose liberty
and human rights to obfuscate and blur as much as they can the distinction
in peoples' minds between coercive and non-coercive activities.

It is in the interests
of such statists to confuse the definition of individual rights and erect
false notionsof "rights" (such as
"group rights") which conflict with true human rights. Conversely,
it is in the interestsof libertarians
to clarify these issues and to make clear distinctions between what is
truly coercive of human rights and what is not.

Selected Historical
Documents List of Major Documents, Books,
Essays, Pamphlets, & Tracts in the Historical Development of the American
Constitutional Republic, and how this increasingly placed legal limitations
on the prerogatives of political rulers (first the King and then the Parliament
itself), thus effecting a separation of whim from the use of government
force by the assertion of private rights.